Faux-comments aside, the “reblog” feature irked me, precisely because I figured that it would turn this medium into an orgy of content appropriation. I think the fact that it doesn’t credit the original poster or provide a link is what’s really bugging me. Do that, make it uneditable, do something to show that content has been ReBlogged, and I would completely approve. Until I change my mind.

We hear you. Every reblogged post tracks where you got it from and where it originated - and this data can’t be edited out. Attribution is permanently recorded, but we don’t display this yet in the themes. In fact, none of the new features (friends, followers, ReBlogging) are integrated in the themes yet - and that’s intentional. We don’t take theme updates lightly, because they change the fundamental public-facing interface of everyone’s tumblelogs.

There’s a lot to be said for keeping reblogged content editable. It’s a mechanism to quote someone else’s content, but add your own commentary. We found that many people would browse Radar or their friends’ tumblelogs and copy popular content manually onto their own tumblelogs (usually without attribution). ReBlogging simply automates this process and adds automatic attribution tracking - you just don’t see it publicly yet.

Initially in development, it was just a straight copy. We found that testers reblogged fewer posts because they didn’t want someone else’s description of a link (for instance) on their tumblelog - they wanted to add their own commentary. Once we made the content editable, ReBlogging became much more useful.

So don’t worry. ReBlogged posts always maintain attribution, and once we finish integrating attribution into the themes, you’ll see it.